On the 23rd, Hyundai Card Vice Chairman Chung Tae-young said in connection with the Lotte Card hacking incident, "This is not someone else's problem; we should think that it happened to us."
Chung said this while noting that he met with the press corps the previous day and repeatedly called for heightened awareness in the company about security issues. With the Lotte Card hacking incident leaking information of 2.97 million customers and as many as 283,000 members seeing sensitive data such as card PINs and CVCs exposed, the financial sector is expected to continue a trend of strengthening security capabilities.
Chung said, "It would be easy if the problem could be defended by investing an additional 10 billion won in security, but because it cannot be solved only as a budget issue, we need to change the organization and look again at (security issues)." He also noted that through the government, social perceptions, and various media articles emphasizing a "public good" role for financial firms, Korea's financial valuation is being pushed down.
Chung analyzed, "Financial firms are not receiving proper valuations," adding, "Not only regulations by financial authorities but also the decision by our society that 'financial firms are a public good' seems to have had a large impact."
Chung also signaled additional exports of Universe, Hyundai Card's artificial intelligence (AI) platform developed in-house, the first of its kind in the financial sector. In Oct. last year, Hyundai Card signed a contract to sell Universe to SMCC (Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company), one of Japan's three major credit card companies.